As a young girl who grew up in church, Jamaican Baked BBQ Chicken was the type of chicken we ate the most. It was the easiest way to make hundreds of pounds of chicken for large conferences, outings and charity events. Well seasoned chicken would get tossed into the oven and always finished with “from-scratch” BBQ sauce. I don’t ever remember my grandmother or the women in church using BBQ sauce from a bottle and the sauce they made was unmatched.
The homemade BBQ sauce has a ketchup base that’s given a kick with freshly grated onions, ginger and scotch bonnet sauce. The chicken is double basted with the sauce and finished under the broiler for the grilled look and taste. I served this chicken with just white rice cooked in coconut milk and seasonings instead of plain water. It is a super easy recipe and one you will truly enjoy. Give it a try and leave me the comment below.
For Jamaican Baked BBQ Chicken recipe you will need:
Tools:
- Baking Sheet
- Aluminum Foil Paper
- Large bowl
- Tongs
- Garlic Press
- 2 disposable gloves
Ingredients
- 1-4lb chicken washed and cut up
- Handful of thyme (washed)
- 2 cloves of garlic (pressed)
- 2 scallions (mashed)
- 1 tbsp chicken seasoning
- 1 tsp of Maggi all purpose
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp white pepper
- 2 tbsp gravy master
- BBQ sauce:
- 1.5 cups of ketchup
- 2 tbsp pickapeppa sauce
- 1 tbsp @spurtreespices scotch bonnet sauce
- 1 tsp gravy master
- ¼ onion (grated)
- 1 tsp ginger (grated)
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
- Cut up chicken. Clean and wash chicken thoroughly with lemon or lime juice and place in a large bowl.
- Rinse and mash scallion between two paper towels or by using a mortar and pestle. Peel and press garlic through the garlic press and rinse thyme under cold running water. Add garlic, thyme and scallions to the chicken.
- Add chicken seasoning, Maggi all purpose, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder black pepper, white pepper and gravy master to chicken. Cover hands with gloves and massage the seasonings into the meat. Cover and marinate chicken for at least 4 hours and up to overnight in the refrigerator.
- Before cooking the chicken, remove it from the fridge and allow the temperature to decrease, about 10-15 minutes. Line a large baking pan with foil paper. You may also use a disposable foil pan to cook the chicken in. Place chicken skin-side up in the pan and cover with foil paper. It’s okay to crowd the pan because the chicken will shrink while cooking.
- Cook the chicken for 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Make BBQ sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients (ketchup, grated onion, grated ginger, gravy master, pickapeppa sauce) in a small bowl. Add in the sugar last and use a spoon to dissolve the sugar into the sauce. You do not need to heat the sauce but dissolve as much of the sugar as possible.
- After 45 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven and uncover. You may discard the foil paper tent. Use a fork to remove large bits of scallion and thyme from the pan. Drain and discard excess water from the baking pan before coating chicken with sauce. Leave only a tiny bit of water in the pan. As the chicken cooks and shrinks, water will be left off in the baking pan. You do not need all of this water. You will get enough gravy from the sauce and the chicken as it continues to cook.
- Use a silicone brush to coat the chicken with BBQ sauce. Cover each piece of the chicken entirely with BBQ sauce reserving half of the sauce for the other side.
- Return the chicken to the oven and place it under the oven’s broiler on the low setting for 10 minutes. Do not tent. Broiling the chicken will cause the sauce to stick to the chicken’s surface and to give it really good color. Use the low setting as anything placed on the broiler will easily burn.
- After ten minutes, remove the chicken from the oven and turn each piece to the other side. Sauce the unsauced side of the chicken using the silicone brush with the remaining BBQ sauce.
- Return the chicken to the oven and place under the broiler on low setting for an additional 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven, plate and serve with rice and veggies! Enjoy!
